User reviews

It's very easy to understand why people hate this movie.

Blindness is directed by acclaimed film-maker Fernando Meirelles, with a story based on a novel by award-winning writer Jose Saramago. It stars Julianne Moore and Gael Garcia Bernal. What could go wrong?

Well, this is one the most depressing movies I've seen in recent years.

Don't be fooled, the genre of this movie is Horror, albeit done in an ultra-realistic way, much like the Brazilian movie wave of the 70/80's - gritty, violent, dirty, and ultimately hopeless.

However it's not a horror movie in the common sense. It's not scary because it has ugly monsters. It's not frightening because there is a lot of gore and blood. What freaks me (and others) out over this movie, is that it tells a story that could happen, and actually, is happening. If one can't see that, then one is as blind as the characters in the film.

The movie is technically brilliant, with great acting and top-notch effects. The story takes place in a non-specific city, but some of it was clearly filmed in São Paulo. The movie poses the question, "what if suddenly everyone in the world became blind"? This is a practical question as much as a metaphorical one.

I don't think this movie can be "enjoyed". The violence is suggested rather than seen (which IMHO makes it scarier). It can, however, be appreciated, as its shocking nature is nothing more than a wake-up call for humanity.

Having said that, Meirelles took a huge risk (the novel was considered to be un-filmable) with this film, and the result was a lynch-mob reaction from both critics and audiences. I wonder how this will impact Meirelles' future works.

I will dare to suggest that, if this had been filmed in Spanish or Portuguese, it might have been hailed as a cult movie. As it is, it's too alienating for audiences that are used to happy endings and fake-violence, or people who watch movies solely to pass the time.

This one is for 'hardcore' movie fans - don't watch it if you're depressed or sad. And it offers the viewers very little in the way of comfort. However, it's so well-executed and disturbing, that you can't help but agree that their goal was reached. Unfortunately, the marketing and the names involved with 'Blindness' misled many viewers who otherwise would never dream of watching this.

It's not a perfect film by any means, though. The music (specially in one crucial scene) just feels out of place sometimes. And If you can't picture yourself as a blind person, some things may not make a lot of sense, too. There is a scene however in which one of the characters sings a very popular song in a slightly different way - one you are not likely to forget anytime soon.

Approach with caution, and preferrably, alone. You don't want to lose any friends or potential dates. But I also think that to miss out on this movie is like losing a chance to watch one of the most thought-provoking films of this year.

7/10

The movie has its merits. It brings you into the story, making you feel all the emotions felt by the characters, and in my opinion this is why some people didn't like it; it opens your eyes for things that nobody wants to see. I'm not saying that a disease like this one could happen, but others may come, and that's a reality.

The movie makes you feel extremely uncomfortable; I caught myself thinking about leaving the room sometimes. The atmosphere that Fernando Meireles built is so heavy and dark (even thought the whole movie is full of bright colors) that it makes you feel something like depression, sadness, and you keep thinking in the movie after it has finished. The acting helped a lot in this aspect; all the actors did their best to give a perfect sense of reality.

If you want just to spend some time watching a good apocalyptic movie, this is not the one. It may be considered as "cult" in someway, by the fact that you don't watch it to get entertained, but to reflect about it.

If I had to grade this movie based on how I felt during it, I would give it a 0, but I have to say that, above everything, it is a great movie.

8/10

An adaptation of the allegorical eponymous novel by Jose Saramago. It tells the story of a group of people who are confined in an old abandoned asylum by the Government after the spread of a global pandemic of a strange contagious white blindness.

The movie follows well the book story, but completely forgets the human and social critique, and the philosophical and political questions embedded in it. In fact, the original title of the book is Essay on Blindness, and it is part of a series of philosophical-literary essays on different themes related to humanity, social and political structures. In other words, the soul and insight of the book are lost in translation.

The book is confronting, shocking and much harder and darker than the movie. The movie is a succession of weird shocking events that have no point, a confrontation between good and evil in an apocalyptic world... Wrong and simplistic. This is so because the scriptwriter and the director missed the most important elements of the book, or, simply, thought that the viewer would not want or understand more complexity.

Part of my disappointment has to do with the acting. Most of the actors are uninspired and badly directed, and some of them miscast. I did not believe them at all in their roles, especially Ruffalo and Moore, who seem not to believe the roles they are playing or the circumstances in which they are placed. I found stereotypical and offensive the use a Hispanic -played by Gael Garcia Bernal- as the bad guy; I mean, that's typical of mainstream stupid Hollywood movies, and it was not in Saramago's book.

It is great that we can experience the white textured involving blindness that the characters suffer, which is beautifully portrayed in the movie. However, there is too much clarity and whiteness in the movie, which is overwhelmingly white and on-purpose blinding, so we, the viewers, become a little blind too. I did not thing that was necessary. I think the director could have shown the white blindness from the point of view of the people getting blind, so the viewer can imagine what it is like, and then make the movie darker and moodier. The viewer is going to watch the movie, but cannot be part of it.

Miralles shows his savoir-faire in some of the most difficult scenes, the ones involving the women going to ward 3, shot with great sensitivity (they are raw and disturbing in the book), more suggesting than showing, creating and atmosphere that shows the drama but not the raw facts. It works perfectly. I also found great the depiction of the desolated city, the chaos and dirtiness the city -unnamed- is reduced to, and the life of the gangs of blind people and dogs in the streets. The music is beautiful -a mix of ethereal, quirky, strange and delicate elements- and serves the story very well. To add another positive element, Saramago's book is not easy to read, among other things, because of his literary style, so the movie is an easier approach to the story and it is still interesting.

Saramago, who never agreed to sell the rights of any of his books to any film producer, did so in this case and after a long negotiation. Miralles directed the movie always having Saramago in mind, and what he would think about his cinematographic options while adapting the novel. Saramago attended, side by side with Miralles, the premier of the movie. A video in Youtube (watch?v=7XzBkM_LdAk), shows the end of the movie, in which Saramago is visibly moved, and says that he feels as happy at watching the movie as he did when he finished his book. Well, as a reader, I can't disagree more.

The movie has bad reviews in general and, in this case, I think they are deserved. To me, is the lack of depth and soul, the mediocre acting and the poor direction in major subjects ruins the interesting premises and storyline. Not all viewers are morons, and it is up to the director to direct and edit the movie, and lead the actors to the point in which they become the characters they are playing. Don't expect the viewer to fill the gaps and inconsistencies of any movie and make an essay on blindness from a bunch of apocalyptic events.

Sometimes I wonder. At times, it seems that we all have some shared cinematic values — that some art can reach us all. Sure, we usually sacrifice depth in the process, but that's a small enough occasional price for the joy of laughing with a crowd. It is no small part of the experience, that shared dark room with no remote control.

So when I see a movie like this, I wonder why it doesn't fit the niche. It is extraordinarily well done. The eye is used to convey not only narrative movement — as usually is desired — but situated group emotion as well. It does this in a straightforward, effective way. It is high cinema, but not requiring deciphering. Some visual episodes here simply took my breath away. They worked, all of them that I got, because Julianne understood what they were and how to support them.

The story has allegorical elements about society and family, humanness and knowing. I would have preferred that they be more subtle, more Chinese. But they worked. You could see the balance, the perfect weighing of values, the texture from a Nobel-level writer.

So this should have been embraced by everyone. High visual art with accessible vocabulary and visceral effect. Obvious allegory, but with rich immediate motion. Several unexpected turns. But for some reason it wasn't. As I knew this going in, it became a sort of parallel context that was carried along. This was absolutely pummeled by the newspaper writers, not critics really; just reporters of a supposed banal zeitgeist.

Viewers on IMDb were not so savage, but this, like "Children of Men" did not get the exposure it deserved. The business about goodness grown from being forced to live on the periphery of dangerous tribe simply did not carry from "City of God" to here, though the similarities are striking.

So I wonder whether it is me that is blind here, in celebrating this, or the other way.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I adored the book, it was both powerful and thought-provoking. The adaptation is fairly decent but I just didn't like it as much. It was gritty, well filmed but I expected more, way more. The movie felt somewhat censored to me for lack of a better term. I do give credit to the director for the clever way his characters go blind and his plays on light. The plot is interesting and mysterious making you wonder what is happening and how you would react to certain situations. Julianne Moore gave a restrained quality performance and the rest of the international cast was OK but not outstanding. I think it's another case where I should have watched the film before reading the book.

Rating: 7 out of 10

It's taken from the novel, and for those who read the novel, they will tell that the novel was so much deeper in taking you through the darkness and the misery of that white blindness. The novel has so many meanings that I feel I can't even express here in few words, but the movie tried to intense the sequence of events to be 2 hours and they could do that in a very good way.

Reading the novel would be great for the people who liked the movie. However, I love the movie so much!

What I didn't like about the movie that in many scenes the actors or actresses didn't act well that I could see that they were only acting and that was so disturbing during watching and being so indulged in the feeling.

Reading the book by Jose Saramago, one of the first things that struck me was the dark tone with which the story was developed. To me, one of the main points of Saramago's writing in this case is making you feel as blind as his characters; you don't know their names, their past, what exactly is happening to them or why. In this sense, it was hard for me to imagine this story being told in a media that relies so much on the visual aspects of a narrative as the cinema. Part of what made possible for me to put myself into the shoes of the characters and, consequently, relate with some of them, was being in the dark with them, having nothing but my imagination to rely on.

Watching the movie, however, I was rather surprised by the final result. I had already watched City of God, so I knew how good Fernando Meirelles was, but, given the circumstances, I was trying not to expect too much from this movie in particular. Nevertheless, the choices made by the director made all the difference. After all, he focuses on another idea present in the book to convey the same message, which is that, even though the whole country is going blind, one of the main characters (Julianne Moore) isn't. So, to me, the movie puts you in her place; it makes you able to see in a world where everyone has gone blind. The only time you can't see what's happening is when she is in the dark. Rather than not being able to see, our biggest curse ends up being the very opposite, which is being able to see so many bad things with tied hands. This is what sets the tone to the movie and, in my opinion, one of its greatest achievements.

On another note, Julianne Moore's amazing performance creates an antithetic feeling in the audience, some kind of painful hope. If, on the one hand, we are forced to see things the way she does, and she is the one whose hope is the most powerful, on the other hand, we know that we can't go back in time, and that everything that was done will remain in the memories of those affected by it.

The photography is both beautiful and brutal at the same time, and the usage of very bright scenes which blur our vision for some seconds is yet another positive point of this adaptation. It conveys the idea that the white blindness might be seen as a metaphor for a kind of "image overdose" as the one discussed by Jonathan Crary (2016) in his book entitled 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep ("With an infinite cafeteria of solicitation and attraction perpetually available, 24/7 disables vision through processes of homogenization, redundancy, and acceleration.", claims the author). In fact, if you watch the documentary by Brazilian directors João Jardim and Walter Carvalho entitled Janela da Alma (The Window of the Soul), you may realize that it was possibly Saramago's idea from the beginning.

More than respectful to the source story, the movie rewrites it with a new perspective while keeping untouched all important events. It's a movie worth watching whether you have read the book or not (even though I definitely recommend that you check the book out) and a piece of art which stands in its own merits.

n the land of the blind, only Julianne Moore can see. A weird malady has spread across an unnamed city that causes “white blindness” in the afflicted. Moore plays the wife of an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who fakes having the disease so that she be quarantined with her husband (and the other early sufferers). The patients quickly learn that they’re on their own and that any attempts to leave the facility will result in their being shot to death. As the only sighted person, Moore literally sees the inmates/patients devolve into misery and must somehow lead a small band of them to the presumed safety of the outside world.

The movie begins rather strongly, as a young man is suddenly blinded while driving on a busy city street. Disoriented, he is helped by a passerby, who takes him home but steals his car. Meanwhile, an ophthalmologist’s office begins to fill up with people experiencing this odd blindness, not one of inky blackness but of complete whiteness. The following morning, the doctor wakes up with the same blindness, and the only way Mrs. Eye Doctor can go with him is by pretending she too has the (apparently) infectious disease.

The patients are kept in maximum-security barracks and are given sparse amounts of food that they must dole out to each other. But that’s the extent of their outside help; armed guards surround the buildings and shoot to kill anyone who tries to leave. (Lest they, you know, infect normal people.) So it’s not long before the denizens of one section (ward) decide they want more than their share, and anarchy ensues, which is compounded by nearly everyone’s lack of sight. (The doctor’s wife – everyone’s unnamed – keeps her own condition a secret from everyone except her husband.) The movie is a metaphor for the hatred within human beings for one another; it seeks to show that when the chips are down, we are just animals, even if we suffer the same indignities, because each of us wishes to be better than the next, to dominate. We are not, the movie argues, a society built solely on equality. It also seeks to show that there are different kinds of blindness: physical blindness, and the blindness of man to the suffering of his fellows.

Although the film is exquisitely well shot – from desolate city streets to the unencumbered chaos within the compound’s walls – it’s alternately slow moving and predictable. It’s easy to see what will happen once the victims are quarantined, and it’s even easier to see that the doctor’s wife will be the one to lead some of them out of the morass. Although Moore is excellent as always (as are Ruffalo, Danny Glover as an eye-patch-wearer, and Alice Braga as a blind hooker), her character seems to be less a victim and accidental leader than a chosen heroine, which runs contrary to the theme of everyday people simply trying to survive without sight. Moore’s character, the only character with sight, is presented as being a good person, but she is very slow to stop what are obviously Very Bad Things being done to the blind.

Aside from the blindness angle, there isn’t much here to separate this film from other personal-disaster films (to differentiate them from natural-disaster films, which would include earthquakes, tidal waves, and tornados), such as movies about plagues (28 Days Later), zombies (Dawn of the Dead), or infectious diseases (Outbreak). The idea that people would turn on each other even though they suffer together is not new; neither is the idea of a society (in this case, an entire city) abandoning those who all have some sort of disease. And because these ideas aren’t new, Blindness isn’t as compelling as it ought to be; the characters are generally one dimensional and unlikeable, so this isn’t even much of a feel-good movie. To tell the truth, it’s a bit of a lifeless downer, although the ending makes up for it a little.

A final note: The American Council of the Blind said, in deploring the movie, that “blind people do not behave like uncivilized, animalized creatures.” That’s simply a silly statement. Anyone can behave as an uncivilized, animalized creature, particularly if they are treated as animals and quarantined from “normal” society (which was the point of the director, Fernando Meirelles); to believe that blind people are not susceptible to anger, despair, and revenge is to believe that blindness somehow connotes angelic heroism, which is unfair toward blind people as well.

I expected an over-the-top action flick, a-la Mad Max style or I Am Legend style. This movie was much slower, much dirtier, and more real. It was more like the BOOK "I Am Legend." The point of the flick was the human element and not the action. It was great.

Having said that, I should have waited to rent it. The audience sitting around me was not intelligent enough to appreciate it -- nor intelligent enough to shut up during the movie. Their chattiness seemed to be born out of boredom. Shame.

I wondered how the movie would end. And at 2 hours long I had plenty of time to think about it. I could not guess it. Perhaps someone smarter, or who thinks in more obvious terms could have guessed it. But I was surprised by it. And it really leaves you thinking. That is, if you were thinking during the movie up to that point.

This movie is dirty to watch and will leave you feeling dirty. In a very adult, intelligent, thought-provoking manner. I write few reviews. This movie moved me to write a review.

It has brought a different perspective to the outbreaks leading to the end of the world. Unlike other post apocalyptic films, the incapacitated side was evaluated differently.

This one gets a 10 out of 10. The very title and premise of this movie was intriguing to me. While we are caught up in the rat race. Wondering how to pay the bills, make the next dollar, worrying about recession, etc... what happens if we all suddenly just go blind. It is true that some of the most basic things that we take for granted that we should be thankful for -- gets lost in a rat-race called life. I knew I would enjoy the very premise of this movie as it shows that depth of how a first world country can go if one of the most basic gifts of sight were deprived. It wouldn't take a very long time for things to become anarchic.

I've been reading through all the comments because I didn't want to say something that wasn't said before. However, I want to defend this movie against some criticisms.

First of all, people are saying that Julian Moore's character waited a bit too late to use her weapon or do something. I think that this actually makes the movie more realistic and is a strength. A character that has never killed before, and is killing for the first time has to be taken beyond a breaking-point in order to cross that boundary. This makes sense with me and I do not understand why people are criticizing this element.

Second complaint common is demanding of goods or valuables if the place is already quarantined. I defend this movie in this respect because I think that to be appreciated, you have to give it latitude by trying to connect with it's overall message, even if it may be metaphorical at the expense of realism. You cant take a movie like this too literal -- you simply have to understand what it is saying -- which is the downward spiral when the rules of society collapse -- and learning to be thankful for some of the things that get lost that's really important in the rat-race we are all called up in.

Thirdly, the complaints of the gore, violence, and rape -- it was rated a restricted movie -- you are viewing at your own risk.

This movie has touched me and I'm glad that I have rented. If for not anything else, but at least helping me to see life beyond the rat-race that we are all glued to and imagining what could happen if one of the most precious gifts that we are all blessed with -- that of vision -- were deprived of everyone for just a length of time what would happen.

THAT -- in itself has got me thinking. There is no higher rating than 10/10 -- so that's the best I can do. I feel happy that something woke me out of the rat-race and see the blue sky -- it was this movie.

First I have read the book and couldn't stop my self watching it's movie. Movie is good , liked it but seriously book was better. Even though it will be my recommendation to who wants to watch a dramatically interesting movie.

"If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed", said the great Stanley Kubrick, who adapted most of his films from novels and turned them into his own films, rather than being too literal (or faithful, if you prefer) to the source material (and often turning authors and fans of the adapted novels crazy – Stephen King, anyone?). I agree with his statement. No literary work is "unfilmable" – which doesn't necessarily mean any literary work, good or bad, can be turned into a good movie. However, in spite of a few flaws, "Blindness" is a very efficient adaptation of a brilliant (and very complex) novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, "Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira" (literally, "Essay About Blindness"), and doesn't deserve all the bad reviews it's been getting.

The negative reaction towards the film doesn't surprise me at all, though. Fernando Meirelles, after getting world acclaim with his neoclassic "City of God", made a very successful transition to an international project with the beautiful "The Constant Gardener". His sophomore English project is very daring and dark, uneasy to watch at times, but also compelling and thought-provoking.

César Charlone's exquisite cinematography sets the tone for the story of an unexplained "white blindness" epidemic. It's also a huge asset to have such a phenomenal actress like Julianne Moore to play the film's heroine: as always, she has a strong presence and is extremely expressive, making everyone believe and feel for her character's cross of being the only one who can see in a chaotic quarantine, where people have to submit to violence and rape in order to survive.

My only major complaint is about the uneven first 20 minutes or so: some sequences seem a little disjointed and the acting somewhat amateurish, but once the first act is done the film finds its own pace and strength. Roger Ebert called it "one of the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, films" he's ever seen. For a start, it would be stupid to assume a film with such a dark premise would be uplifting (and if Ebert had the slightest knowledge about the material it's based on, he'd realize what he was up for), so his comment is unintelligent and atrocious like the majority of everything he's ever written (but he's a widely popular Pulitzer-winning film critic, so unfortunately lots of people trust his opinion before going to see a movie). Even though I still prefer the outstanding novel to the film, I admire director Fernando Meirelles and writer Don McKellar's adaptation for what it is: smart, daring and respectful to its source material, without being overtly faithful or afraid of taking risks. And Saramago himself approved the film, so who are we to criticize? The man knows what he's talking about; if you want to see it for yourself, read his novel now and then compare it to this film, appreciating it not as a literary work, but as the good piece of cinema it is. 8/10.

There is a contagious blindness disease. The optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) who treats the first case also gets it. The authorities round up the sick under quarantine. The doctor's wife (Julianne Moore) doesn't get the blindness but she stays by his side. Soon the sick are left on their own and the strong starts taking advantage of the weak. Doctor's wife keeps her sight a secret as the prison descend into hell.

The start is pretty slow and I don't think it's necessary. My main problem is that there are a few unbelievable things in this movie. A minor problem is how quickly the quarantine is imposed. For such a weird sickness, the authorities seem unusually brilliant. The main problem is the unwillingness of the wife to use her sight. The plot seems to be bending over backwards to get to its points. There is a very provocative plot here. I wish it could be done more naturally.

I remember seeing the trailer for Blindness back in April, I thought this looked like a terrific film and was just looking forward to it. I had the opportunity to see it this last Tuesday, I wasn't too sure though on what to expect, was this a horror movie, was it a suspense thriller or maybe was it meant to speak to society? Well, all of thee above, it had some really scary moments, very intense moments, as well as showing us how we take something so precious for granted, our sight. However this film did throw me off, it was a little slow paced at times and some scenes could have been shorter as well as the story would have some strange moments that really just made it seem like it was a straight horror film while I think this should have been a more balance mixture of each genre that I described before. I was never that big on Julianne Moore either, but she pulls in a great performance and was very strong, she carries the story pretty well.

We open with one man caught in the middle of a horrible rush hour, all of a sudden he looses his sight, a man offers to drive him home and steals his car. The man and his wife go to the eye doctor, the eye doctor doesn't see any symptoms that would prove anything causing his blindness. But the next morning, the eye doctor is blind as well, he and his wife go to a government holding center where they fear that the blindness is contagious as the blindness spreads throughout the country. But things get dramatically worse as the blind people start to turn on one another and make things very violent and fatal towards each other.

Blindness is a very powerful movie and is over all worth the watch, I do have a couple problems with the movie, like the pacing of the movie as well as the story. We never find out what causes the blindness, was it a disease, was it a terrorist plot, was it technology...? It's just a very interesting film, I had to think Blindness over for a while, I was walking out of the theater and someone said it was the worst film she had ever seen in her life and when I went to the bathroom and saw another person who saw the movie said that it was such a powerful movie and that she was very pleased with the film and how it was made. So I'm going to say this movie is for a certain kind of person, it has it's flaws, but if you are truly a film buff, I would say that it's worth the look.

7/10

I was surprised to find this film not just engrossing but incredibly well shot. With a white color pallet that is seldom put to screen Blindness is about a city that is suddenly engulfed by something that causes instant blindness. Exquisitely shot and well-paced this is a film that will make for something that will surely fascinate the audience.

Blindness (2008), directed by Fernando Meirelles, is an adaptation of José Saramago's novel Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira that tells the story of a society that falls victim to a sudden surge of blindness. The film is an extraordinary adaptation. It pictures a lot of the details of the book, such as places and scenes that are fundamental to the plot.

The where and when the story happens is not mentioned and to express this idea in the film the director made a great choice by mixing elements of various nationalities. The language used is English, but the license plates look similar to Brazilian plates, the images of the city are taken from cities from different countries and the cast is really diverse. Also, none of the characters has a name, and fortunately this wasn't modified in the movie. As a great fan of the novel, these were the first details that I was expecting to see because they create the perfect atmosphere to the plot.

Speaking of plot, just a few things were changed and it didn't bring any harm to the original story. While I was watching, I started to remember certain scenes from the novel and I was trying to imagine how these scenes would be portrayed in the film. I wasn't disappointed at all. Of course some parts were left out, but it wasn't a great loss, they were well adapted to be shorter than the novel. I've seen some negative reviews talking about how the film can cause a bad feeling to the audience, but I can't see how this is a bad thing, because that is exactly the purpose of the whole story. It is to cause discomfort, to show the reality we could live. The graphic scenes can be too strong to the more sensitive but they were unavoidable.

All I can say is that Blindness is a well made adaptation that doesn't disappoint those who read the novel. The direction is brilliant, the actors are great and the story is told in full. Even if you didn't read the novel, it is a great way to meet José Saramago's brilliant work.

I'm sure many folks out there didn't get all the way through it. It was an incredibly sad film. Moore was incredible and there are some very moving scenes but not quite enough to lift you out of the utter despair of the film. It leaves you thinking about it long after it's over.

Me to watch this one i liked it because ive never seen a movie about everyone going blind in the world it was interesting for me , it was alright